The Musings of Petty Labelle

Tag Archives: black people

Greetings, loves. I hope this Hump Day was well for you. As for me, I ain’t do shit today. I did’t sleep well, so I was sleep on and off all day, battling sinus issues and allergies. Pray for me. Can’t complain too bad though. Anywho, today I came to talk about the media always talking about successful black women not being able to find a man and black men that’re no good.

I’m not going to give you a history lesson. But I find it interesting how the family structure of black people has been proactively under attack since our arrival from the middle passage, and then a couple hundred years later, everyone has all these questions about the plight of black people. You can’t intentionally f-ck up people’s community for 500 years and then wonder why the pieces aren’t still picked up 200 years later.

Personally, I think black people and their families could be doing alot worse. My grandparents celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary yesterday and there are plenty of couples around my city I know that’re their age that have been married for decades. #Shoutouts to those couples because this country is NOT made for a black family.

Anywho, I think the media’s articles and stories on black people is just another ploy to destroy us. If we as young black women and men keep on reading these articles about how we’ll never get married, get a job, end up in jail, get abortions more than everyone else, not take care of our kids, die of diabetes or AIDS then we’ll do it. It’s called self-fufilling prophecy.

At the same time, I refuse to believe that all black people personalize everything the media throws at them… cause hey 98% of those images are pretty shitty.

I’m a young black woman, I’ll have a degree if its in the Lord’s will soon, I’m in college. I know plenty of beautiful, smart, sexy black women that’re happy, single or otherwise. It’s 2011, marriage is a beautiful institution, but black women don’t NEED to be married anymore for financial stability… It’s not always because we’re intimidating. I get approached by men of all different colors… and know 3 men good men with jobs that’ll marry me tomorrow.

I also know plenty of sexy, smart black men that’re doing what they’re supposed to do, not in jail and raising their children.

Maybe I’m around the talented tenth that DuBois spoke of, but the media’s depiction of us isn’t always accurate in all circles. The problem is that the media groups black people as if we all have the same experience. We live in this big ass country, why would we all have the same values, morals, beliefs and opinions?

It’s not that I don’t want to be grouped with all black people, I just don’t think its very accurate.

I’m writing this because I see alot of black media outlets feeding into this single successful black woman that needs dick myth.. and the rhetoric of the ‘no good black men’… I don’t expect much from white people, but I get disappointed when black people start contributing to the attacks on our culture.

The facts are there, alot of our black men are in jail, alot of our black women are mothers that have never been and will never be wives. We should create a society where brown people will have more choices instead of constantly writing articles and doing stories about ’em.

We also have a lot of working black people with degrees that’re taking care of their children and contributing to society, just because articles aren’t being written about them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.